Sovereignty Through Mathematics - Introduction | Bitcoin Infinity Academy #1

Hey there everyone and welcome to the very first episode of the Bitcoin Infinity Academy. I'm here with Luke DeWolf, um, uh, and we're trying this thing out. We're excited to be here, Knut. We've been thinking about doing this academy for a really long time, and it's awesome that we're finally getting off the ground. Yes, the Bitcoin Infinity Academy is brought to you by PlanB Network. your number one resource for Bitcoin education.

So if you need any types of, uh, Bitcoin educational tools, you should go to plan B dot network and check them out there. They have a lot of orange peeling tools. If you want to orange pill your friends and bring them into the academy here. Absolutely, and they, uh, they, uh, are graciously, uh, helping us get this all out to you for free. This is why this is all free on Noster, why these discussions are, are free for everyone, so big thank you to them.

And also thank you to Bitbox, who has also graciously decided to, to sponsor this initiative. Go to bitbox. swiss. infinity for more about them. They're our favorite hardware wallet. We'll talk more about them later. Yes, and this is the first episode of the Academy, and it's also the first episode of the Bitcoin Sovereignty Through Mathematics course. And so the way this works is that, every single chapter of each and every one of my books will be released for free on master.

So you can, you can read the chapters there, but you can also join the discussion here. Luke and I are going to do this little videos where we discuss each and every idea in each of the chapters of each of the books. and you can join our telegram group, which is the Bitcoin infinity community thing, sort of. Uh, and the other thing is that you can join a specific course. So each book will be a specific course.

so for 21, 000 sats, you can join the discussions and, be in, this thing with me and Luke and ask us questions and challenge, challenge the ideas and, and whatnot. Absolutely. And of course, of course, we'll be listening to comments online on Noster, on all the other platforms and everything, but the course is your way to join us. Join the live recordings.

We, we don't, we're not the most flexible bunch, mostly me, but, you can, you can join the live recordings, uh, when they happen, if you like, um, but, but also ask us questions directly in, in the telegram and, and have a chat with us about it. We also have some, uh, some special live calls. Planned for, for course members. So join us, join the discussion. And, uh, yeah, we're gonna have a lot of fun with, Yes.

So the, the easiest way to, to join our base level group is just to buy something off of our website and give us your telegram handle. But the other thing you can do is go to geyser. fund and you'll find our Bitcoin Infinity Academy there. And. everything, they can infinity Academy, all the information about all the courses and what this thing is, is on the guys for fun page. So make sure you check that out and see what kind of part you want to play in the all of this. Absolutely.

And so should we, should we dive right in with the first episode for sovereignty through mathematics? yeah, absolutely.

So sovereignty through mathematics is my first proper book on Bitcoin. It was released back in, uh, I believe may 2019, but it didn't really take off until, uh, August that year or even September when I went to Riga with 50 books in my hand luggage, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. So, I started writing about Bitcoin online in 2017, and I wrote articles on medium. which I later turned into a book, actually, my real first book about Bitcoin is this one. It's called three minutes.

Read some Bitcoin. And this was like a prototype book. So this is just a compilation of those articles. and then I had that. I wasn't very happy about it because it was the only book I had to my name. So I decided on New Year's Eve 2018 to write a proper book about Bitcoin and that later became Sovereignty through Mathematics. It had a working title that was Dealing with Bitcoin. This is what it looked like. The first prototype of Sovereignty through Mathematics.

Uh, this one even had little graphs and stuff in it. but I'm very happy I changed the title later. so the, the original book, uh, looked like this. Maybe you've seen that. we've just made a re edit of all of my previous books. And this is part of why we're doing this. So this is the big relaunch. So this is what Sovereignty Through Mathematics looks like.

Right now, uh, beautiful hardcover, black hardcover here, and, uh, yeah, the story about the book is that I, uh, I made myself a New Year's resolution on that New Year's Eve, uh, and that was that I was going to write a page a day for the entire year, 2019. And as with all New Year's resolutions, you break them after a while. I broke mine after 106 days, but I managed to write a page a day for 106 days at least. But after that, I felt the book was kind of done.

So that is what became Sovereignty Through Mathematics. and I released it and no one gave a shit, until a, uh, Bitcoin core developer, who shall not be named, uh, , started helping me with the editing the book. So, so he shot me a DM and it's like, uh, I really like this book, but the language could be better or whatnot. And he helped me edit it. And I had a, uh, a, a lot of help, so, so I, I re-edited the book a bit and then brought 50 books to Baltic, honey Badger and Riga.

And this was back when I had a regular Fiat job. I was the HR manager for a shipping company, and I was visiting a, um, merchant Marine Academy in Riga. That was the official reason, reason for me going there. But of course, I had the. The Baltic honey badger conference in the back of my mind. So, so I hit two birds with one stroke there.

I went, went to the conference, um, had 50 of these things in my hand luggage, uh, gave 25 away to, um, important Bitcoiners and sold the 25 of them for either cash or over the lightning networks. Can you believe that in back in, uh, September, 2019, uh, using the lightning network and. As far as I can remember, it worked very well, and then the book started catching some, uh, attention and starting to get a life of its own.

Uh, a couple of years later, uh, when Michael Saylor entered the Bitcoin scene, I got a DM from him a couple of months after he first arrived. where he complimented the book and he wanted to put it on a micro strategies, Bitcoin educational website, hope. com. And it's been there ever since. And I'm very proud that this book, did so much for me and like, um, catapulted my, my sort of public Bitcoin or career here of whatever you can call it. Uh, I, I never expected this to go anywhere really.

So I'm really happy to be here and do this stuff with you now. And in re editing the book with Luke, I realized that there's a lot in here that are sort of thought embryos for what to be, what was to be more fleshed out ideas in the end. Subsequent books. So, this is sort of episode 0 of the Bitcoin Infinity Academy and we'll just talk about the book in general, but the next episode will be, uh, the 1st chapter. Everything a trade. Yeah. Over to you. Look,

Yeah, well, I mean, this, this, this story is, is, uh, is fantastic. I mean, as you say, it's where, where this all started and I mean, not, not to, to put too, too much into like our, uh, the way we got together, I think, I think. Are many of our listeners already know the story and everything, but, but obviously without, without this book and you starting to do more things in Bitcoin, we wouldn't have been working together and, and, and, uh, taking this all forward.

So, yeah, it all starts here and that's just awesome. And yeah, this this Academy concept. So this first episode, what we're releasing this with is with the preface and the forward. So we'll show those here in a moment. But yeah, like we started when we started re editing the book and really having the discussions about it. That was really cool because, um, I read these books back in the day when I was first getting into Bitcoin, but it'd been a while and.

And really what we, what we started to do is what we almost always do. We have, we have these discussions about anything and everything that's going on in the Bitcoin world and what is our take on this and everything. And, uh, that really intensified, of course, when we started to write Bitcoin, the Inverse of Clown World together.

And, and we, we really fleshed out a lot of ideas in, in that particular book, but then we went back and looked at Sovereignty to Mathematics, Independence Reimagined, everything, a million, of them have, have, uh, um, idea embryos or, or, or something like that, that you, that you, you call, like, uh, there's, there's, there's a lot here in these books, and so I'm excited that, uh, and I, I hope this really Parks discussion and and even also starts a starts a

trend of of books and articles and and all this being being released on. Nostra where it's where it's free and where people can comment and, uh, um, give these give these ideas more, uh, more life because because, um, these things aren't aren't. Self evident to everyone. This is my view on the philosophical side of Bitcoin in general, which, which I think we semi reluctantly fall into the, the philosophical camp.

It's not just, it's not just that, uh, uh, but Bitcoin philosophers is kind of the, I think the shorthand for, for both of us for, for what we do with this Bitcoin infinity stuff. But the philosophy is really conviction deep. Us digging through these ideas and trying to, trying to poke holes in them and trying to see what a world with Bitcoin looks like if everything is taken to absolutely its furthest extent.

Um, and it looks pretty great and, uh, in challenging these ideas and in, and in building these ideas, we, we can steel man our own, uh, arguments against Bitcoin so that we're much better at, at spreading adoption and, and. doing our part to make sure Bitcoin seeds, because even if this is inevitable, there are definitely challenges that can come along the way. And, uh, us as Bitcoiners being more prepared. And more able to spread the word about Bitcoin. This is this is what it's all about.

And it's also a reason why I think plan B is the perfect partner for us here, too, because because they're all about spreading Bitcoin educational content in every language. Possible and, uh, we're just a different layer of that really like the conviction deepening for the, uh, Bitcoin maximalists who are already well inducted into the thing.

But if you are listening to this and you're fairly new to Bitcoin and you haven't dug into these ideas before, I really hope that you get get a lot out of this also. absolutely. And so we're doing all on 4 books. We have all four, all four of the Bitcoin books. So they're all re released and available from bitcoininfinitystore. com. This is sovereignty through mathematics. After that, like, uh, I think starting on infinity day, we'll, we'll do the next book. Right.

So we'll, we'll do this course. This is a 14 episode course, uh, the, uh, sovereignty through mathematics one. Um, we'll have an opening. This is the opening episode. We'll have do all the four, all the 12 chapters and then a closing episode where we wrap things up, uh, and then do a short break and where we do a lot of conferencing and stuff, Luke and I are going to Prague and Calgary and, uh, Budapest and Riga and, uh, and Helsinki first and foremost, which is a conference we're co organizing.

After that, we'll start Independence Reimagined, which is now redesigned and looks like this. I have the first version of that here. This is, uh, this first version has this beautiful fractal encrypt sculpture on it. This is where I started to, where I befriended Fractal and we started working together. The re release has this beautiful snake with laser eyes on it. after that, it's, uh, of course, everything divided by 21 million, which will start some somewhere around Christmas or something.

I think that's if we're following our schedule, uh, and after that, it's, uh, of course, Bitcoin, the inverse of clown world, uh, which I co wrote with Luke. And I, I still think this is the best book I've ever done. Uh, much. Thanks to Luke. So looking forward to all of this, so this Sovereignty through Mathematics has

a foreword by Prince Filip of Serbia. And, of course, Prince Filip wasn't a Bitcoiner back when this was released. So this was actually released for another version of this book. Bit of history here. So this is Bitcoin Sovereignty and Independence. So I, I released both these books as one a couple of years back. And that's when Prince Filip wrote the foreword. Which I was very happy about. I'm like, I have the best four words in the world.

Like I have one by Prince Filip, one by Hodlonoth, one by Jeff Booth, one by Raheem Tagisadegan, and one by Giacomo Socco. Like, what, what, what, what is that? That's like, name that band if you can. That's so good. So, it would be an interesting band. yeah. So I'm, I'm very happy about all of this and excited to get into the meat of it, so to speak. Absolutely. And, uh, yeah, again, the, the, the forwards are are awesome.

And, uh, just, just a little bit about kind of how the, the, um, the book is, is perceived by others, which is, which is important. So we're, we're releasing, what we're releasing today is both the preface, which is. Knut's own explanation of this book and, and maybe you can, you can talk just a little bit about, about this part as well, and then also the forward. So, so everything before chapter one, we're releasing today, Noster. This is sort of a little, advertisement for the book. Sort of.

Um, and then the, the first episode we're going to release this upcoming Tuesday. Uh, this is, this is a little special. We're, we're not, we're not going to do this every time. Usually the, the, uh, these episodes will be released on Fridays. And then, um, our usual Bitcoin Infinity show episodes will still be out on Tuesdays as usual. Uh, but, but this week specifically, we're, we're going to release an episode of the Bitcoin Infinity Academy early.

Um, sorry, it's this upcoming Monday actually, right? I think we agreed it's the Monday. So we'll release. Episode zero. So, so called today, this Friday. If you're listening to this March 21st, uh, and then, and then this following Monday, the 24th, uh, we're going to release our episode one on everything a trade, uh, and then, and then, uh, the, the following Friday will be the, the second chapter. So, uh, this is sort of what, what are we calling this Bitcoin infinity academy week here at.

Bitcoin Infinity HQ. Um, and then we'll be back with our usual Bitcoin Infinity show episodes after that, but we just wanted to basically give a whole bunch of content right here to start and kick this thing off with a bang and, uh, Well, um, would love for you to join in on the conversations. We're, we're also gonna be recording these as close to release time as possible.

It's, it's a little tricky, but basically this, this stuff we're just, we're just talking about these books and it's, it's us and, uh, yeah. So we're, we're gonna record these pretty close to the, to the actual release dates. And, uh, we'll, we'll be, we'll be saying when in our, our, uh, our group's show here. And you can join in. You can, uh, you can view the live episodes when, when they're released. When they're recorded, sorry.

And then, and then, uh, and then they'll be released within a couple of days, probably. So, um, really looking forward to this. Yeah, and, uh, even if you don't join the course, I urge you all to interact with the material and, uh, like and repost and, and do all the things because this is a chance to play around with Noster tools. Uh, we're going to play around a bit ourselves with things like highlighter, maybe Alexandria and all this stuff.

This is this is meant to be devoured by by Bitcoiners on Nostrad. Uh, there's a bit of backstory here. Uh, I first met Miljan from Primal, uh, at a fancy cocktail party on Madeira, uh, during Bitcoin Atlantis. And he walks up to me and Luke and he says, you're Knut, right? And I answered, yes. And then he goes, you broke my Nostra client. And this was because I had just posted the entirety of Sovereignty Through Mathematics as a note on Primal.

So just the text file, I just copy pasted the entire book as one note. And apparently that broke Nostra. So achievement unlocked. Uh, but that's sort of the, the embryo for this thing, right, Luke? That's where we, we, uh, started, uh, talking about, like, maybe, maybe we can do something here. Maybe we should release stuff for free over Nostr, and maybe there's a, uh, a clever way of doing this instead of just force feeding everyone an entire book, book in one post.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think, I think the idea here is that, is that to We, we see the value of, of discussing the, the content again and, uh, yeah, this way we can basically, uh, it, it's out there. It's available to read. I don't even think you could find that original note anymore just because it's, it's, I think they had to do something to, like, get it off of servers or something like that.

Um, yeah, but this is, we're excited about this, this initiative and, uh, along the way and, uh, let's, let's have some fun and, uh, spread the word and, and hopefully it turns into something that, that not only because we're, we're releasing this on all platforms at the same time and the goal is to drive people to Noster so that this stuff can, can be, um, So so that people can can interact with Nostra can maybe try it for the first time.

If you want to support us, there are, of course, many ways to do that. And buying the book is is 1 that gets you access to our telegram group. Of course, if you buy it from the Bitcoin infinity store. And, and you know, if you, if you wanna just repost, comment, send us a zap, whatever, that much appreciated. But, but I think we're, we're here just to spread the word.

So if, if, if you got some value from, from this, from us posting this material, you know, we're, we, we appreciate everything, but, but that's up, that's up to you and. Love to, to see this thing grow and become as much as it can really, I think that's the, the, the, the whole point.

yeah, absolutely. Um, well, for those of you that were worried, we're absolutely not stopping the, the regular Bitcoin infinity show either. We're, we're, we have some great, great guests lined up here this spring, and we have made over 150 episodes at this point. So I'm, I'm, which is, which is just mind boggling to me. Uh, we started this whole thing like two and a half years ago, Luke and I met and just started doing more and more things together. And this is how all of these ideas were born.

So at this point we've written a book together and recorded more than 150 episodes. So super excited for this, uh, do as many of the things as you can. If you, if you want to support us, everything helps. Well, and then maybe now we can just, uh, uh, just a little bit more of, if you, if you don't know who we are, what we're about, check out the Bitcoin Infinity show. Everything is in our, everything is in our channels here. The Bitcoin Infinity Store, BitcoinInfinityStore.

com has everything that we produce, including the four Bitcoin books that Knut showed. It has everything to do with the Academy as well. Geyser. fund is one place, but also on our store. Then we also have some partnerships with a lot of other great authors. Larry Lippard, Seb Bunny, Daz B. We'll be adding some more books over time here for sure. And, uh, you can also get and other things like that, uh, from, from the site as well. Everything divided is a, is a popular one.

Um, the, the other things that we're doing right now is that we're, we're right in the middle of getting out another, another, uh, couple of editions of the Bitcoin Times release. So you'll be seeing some out about that, about the original editions of the Bitcoin Times. That's something we took on. At the latter half of last year, and that we're slowly getting to the finish line to produce new collectible versions of that stuff. So, really looking forward to that.

and then it's the conference circuit, right? Knut, this is, uh, this is what we're always excited about doing. And, uh, you're busier than me, but I think we've both got a pretty busy summer, right? yes, we, we, we certainly have and, uh, you should try using the discount code infinity everywhere on the, on the internet that is Bitcoin related because we're, we're, we have, uh, dipped our toes into all sorts of ponds, uh, here and there, uh, conferences is one thing.

I'm doing the first one now in May, I'm doing Ireland and then we're both doing Prague. We're both going to Calgary. I'm going to Budapest and you're probably going to Riga, right, Luke? And after that, it's the Helsinki one, which is one where, uh, or co organizing ourselves. And we have handpicked a bunch of our friends as speakers. It's going to be great. Go to b2chell. com to find out more about that. Come to Finland.

And after that, it's a bit of a break, but then probably Bulgaria, probably, uh, uh, Switzerland, the plan plan B, uh, forum, which is a great conference. And hopefully we'll do all the things there, sign books and play rock and roll and do all the other stupid stuff we do when we get together. Exactly. And, uh, yeah, I don't know. And, uh, I can't say enough good things about, uh, Prague. I mean, that's the, that's the big one. Come to, come to Prague if you can.

Uh, there's, there's always, there's always lots of awesome stuff there. We're, we're going to have a, a big book booth, uh, And, uh, lots of, lots of other authors coming as well. Uh, Riga is always, yeah, like I, I couldn't, I couldn't miss it. Uh, we, we always appreciate, uh, what, what goes on there with Riga. They're, they're really the OGs.

And they, uh, they had, uh, the, the Surreptitious timing of of putting their conference this year on a date that they never have, but it turns out it was a week before the date that we picked for BTC HEL. And so it's it's an amazing chance. You can come to both Baltic honey badger and to BTC HEL one week after the other. You can do you can do Budapest as well. If you if you like, it will be there. That's that's gonna be a really interesting conference. Um, but I'll be in Riga.

And Riga and Helsinki are really close to one another. So you come, come enjoy a Baltic Nordic, um, week, basically, uh, and, uh, See Riga, see everything that's going on there and then come up to Helsinki. You're having a blast. Uh, there's a really great team involved with, with BTC HEL, tons of great speakers and It's a really nice time of year to come see the Nordics and to come to come to see Helsinki. It's my home. I'm really excited to host a whole bunch of Bitcoiners here.

And there's a ton of really exciting stuff happening where we keep getting getting more and more people. Locals here are interested in. Bitcoin and and I'm really excited to see what the impact we have is. That's really the point of this conference where where honey badger is kind of this O. G. Conference where everyone gets together and shows the exciting things that are going on. But it's really for like plebs and people who are deep in the ecosystem already.

Helsinki were really trying to show to our local environment like what this thing is all about and grow adoption, grow awareness. Come join us and help spread the word. That's, that's basically the, the pitch plus enjoy going to sauna and, uh, and, uh, uh, nice long days and, uh, life by the sea and all this it's, uh, I'm really excited for this. So come to Helsinki also come to all the conferences, but come to Helsinki. absolutely. Um, yes, I couldn't be more excited for this.

This year is going to be a great year for Bitcoin in general and Bitcoiners in particular. That is the same thing, really. So, uh, looking forward to all of it. Um, that's what we got for you today, I think. So, shall we?

I think, I think, let's, uh, let's say one last, one last word about our, uh, um, our partners here. So thanks again to, first of all, Bitbox. Thank you. Thanks to them for, uh, continuing to support us. They've been a sponsor of the Bitcoin Infinity Show for, for quite some time here. And, uh, we're, we're thrilled about that. They're, they're our favorite hardware wallet and we, uh, We recommend for every kind of of Bitcoin or or new coin or or whatever, whatever you call it. So go to bitbox.

swiss slash infinity and and check that out. And then, of course, also Plan B Network, who is who is our our sponsor here for the Bitcoin Infinity Academy, and they're they're really enabling us to to do this and to to put time and energy and focus into this and release everything for free. So big shout out to them. Check out all of their. All of their resources, their educational resources at plan B dot network.

We're also going to have versions of these, these, uh, uh, videos for their channel that are like a little tighter, a little more focused, that are, uh, more usable as educational resources, as opposed to this kind of semi con conversational format that we've got here. So yeah, just really excited about this partnership. Uh, great people there, of course, at plan B network, just spreading Bitcoin adoption and part of. Anything else?

No, except, uh, don't forget to like, subscribe, and polish your shoes. Perfect. That's the you use, uh, shoes that are polishable. Otherwise, brush your teeth. Otherwise. But if you can No, yeah, yeah, you could, you should do both. Yes. Oh, okay. That's a wrap. Until next time.